U.S. law gives constitutional rights to corporations. Now a countervailing legal theory is emerging that defines and defends the legal rights of the environment.

Mari Margill is Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in their West Coast office in Portland, Oregon. But as she explains here, the organization's origins lie in Pennsylvania.


Obtaining legal standing for nature, says Margill, requires enacting new laws to spell that out, something that is beginning to happen in scattered local jurisdictions, but faces an uncertain future on appeal.

For more information about CELFD click here.

There’s one simple thing an individual can do to greatly reduce their carbon footprint:  eat less meat.

Another current trend in the efforts to counter industrial agriculture is grass fed beef and cage free poultry. That may result in healthier and tastier animals, but Hope Bohanec (right)  is not persuaded that it’s a practical response to the need to feed the planet.

Beyond reducing the creation of greenhouse gases, Bohanec can envision a scenario in which land now devoted to animal husbandry in one form or another could be converted back to oxygen-generating forests.

The following links will take you to the studies referenced by Bohanec in the report above:

United Nation's Food and Agriculture Committee 2006 study Livestock's Long
Shadow.
University of Chicago report comparing switching to vegan diet with switching to a hybrid car.
Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do more for
the planet by going vegetarian one day per week than by switching to a
completely local diet.

Hope Bohanec  has been active in Animal Rights for over 20 years, organizing successful campaigns with Sonoma People for Animal Rights (SPAR) throughout the '90s. In 2002, she founded Vegan Voices, focusing on education and outreach for farm animals. Hope was the Sonoma County Coordinator for Proposition 2 and soon after that victory, fused Vegan Voices into the new Farm Animal Protection Project (FAPP). She has now offered her organizational talents to In Defense of Animals (IDA) as their Grassroots Campaigns Director, One of their projects, World Go Vegan week is later this month, Oct. 25-31.

“Cash for Clunkers” wasn’t just a economic boost for the automobile industry, says one of the me who designed it. It was also a tool for reframing consumer’s decision-making.

Jack Hidary,  co-founder of SmartTransportation.org and chairman of Americans for Clean Energy.org,  is confident that consumers will come to recognize the economic benefits of owning and driving vehicles that are less dependent on fossil fuels. The greater challenge, he says, is mobilizing business and government to develop the infrastructure that those vehicles will require.

Pointing to his experience in shaping the “Cash for Clunkers” program, Hidary cites three key procedural steps they had to address to win the institutional support necessary for that program to happen.

Jack Hidary will be among the featured speakers at the annual Bioneers conference in San Rafael, beginning on Friday. To explore the  Bioneers 2009 Conference program click here.

As climate change creates a hotter and drier California, our native birds will relocate to more hospitable areas, and existing communities of species will recombine in new ways that may threaten their survival.

PRBO and their partners have developed  interactive maps showing the projected redistribution of bird species in California.

Common Yellowthroat

As is often the case, the initial findings of this study, published as “Reshuffling of Species with Climate Disruption:  A No-Analog Future for California Birds?” suggest several areas where additional research is warranted, says lead author Diana Strahlberg.

Tree swallow

Strahlberg also suggests that the approach taken in this study, of examining the interactive relationships between species as they respond to climate change, could also herald a new way of looking at wildlife management.

  Diana Strahlberg of the PRBO will be among the presenters at the annual State of the Laguna Conference on Wednesday at Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park.